Steve Jobs In Email Pissing Match With College Journalism Student

From Gawker:

Steve Jobs is known for replying to random emails sent to his personal Apple email address. Well, a college journalism student from Long Island emailed him about a problem she had with Apple's PR department. Jobs' response? "Leave us alone."

Long Island University senior Chelsea Kate Isaacs, 22, emailed Jobs Thursday with a complaint: Her journalism professor had assigned her a story on a new initiative at her college to buy iPads for all incoming students. She wanted to get a quote from Apple about the use of iPads in academic settings. But when she repeatedly called Apple's PR department, leaving six voice messages, they never got back to her.

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Brain Matter Linked To Introspective Thinking

Views of the inflated cortical surface showing areas of brain grey matter correlating with introspective accuracy. Credit: Science/AAAS

From Cosmos:

WASHINGTON: People with a greater capacity for introspection have more grey matter in certain regions of their brains, according to a recent study.

Comparing the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from the brains of 32 research subjects, scientists established a link between introspective ability and the size and structure of a small area of the anterior prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain associated with ‘higher-thinking’ skills.

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The Water Of Life: A Small World With Huge Potential

Frozen assets: icy geysers from the south polar region of Enceladus. AFP / Getty Images

From The Independent:

In the icy oceans of Enceladus, one of Saturn's tiny moons, scientists believe that there is proof that aliens exist. So why are there no plans to return to this mysterious miniature world?

In the future, swooping low over a lonely ice-moon of distant Saturn, an unmanned spacecraft will manoeuvre carefully, for it will be in a fragile orbit around a small world of feeble gravity.

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How Should San Francisco Plan For Sea-Level Rise?

BAY CITY: Sea-level rise due to climate change may imperil coastal development.
Mila Zinkova, courtesy WikiCommons

From Scientific American:

A 1,400-acre swath of salt flats along the western edge of San Francisco Bay has become the latest site for a development dispute that promises to become increasingly common in coastal U.S. cities: Whether new waterside growth makes sense when sea levels are rising.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—A 1,400-acre swath of salt flats along the western edge of San Francisco Bay has become the latest site for a development dispute that promises to become increasingly common in coastal U.S. cities: Whether new waterside growth makes sense when sea levels are rising.

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Incredible Pictures Of New York City At Night

On the front: The cover of Hawkes' book New York At Night. The 43-year-old spent 15 weeks putting his collection together

New York By Night: British Photographer's Astounding Scenes Of The Big Apple... Taken From The Open Door Of A Helicopter -- The Daily Mail

It is one of the most distinctive skylines on Earth.

But cloaked in a blanket of darkness, New York's numerous landmarks take on an almost ethereal quality.

Captured at night from around 1,000ft above the ground, these spectacular aerial images offer a striking portrait of one of the world's most vibrant cities, showing it as it has rarely been seen before.

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Pope's Astronomer Would Baptize Aliens

Will Smith delivered an alien baby in the movie "Men in Black." But would he baptize it? Amblin Entertainment

From FOX News:

One of the pope’s astronomers would happily baptize an alien if asked -- “no matter how many tentacles it has.”

Guy Consolmagno, a trained astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican’s observatory, discussed a slew of topics at the British Science Festival in Birmingham last weekend, noting that the Vatican was more up to date with the latest scientific developments than most realized.

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Penn Study Shows Why Sleep Is Needed To Form Memories

From Science Codex:

PHILADELPHIA – If you ever argued with your mother when she told you to get some sleep after studying for an exam instead of pulling an all-nighter, you owe her an apology, because it turns out she's right. And now, scientists are beginning to understand why.

In research published this week in Neuron, Marcos Frank, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, PhD, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular changes in the sleeping brain promote the formation of memories.

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Sharks Photographed Eating A Whale

Great white shark feeding on a dead Bryde's Whale off Seal Island, Cape, South Africa Photo: ALISON KOCK / SPECIALIST STOCK / BARCROFT MEDIA

From The Telegraph:

Incredible pictures have caught the moment that several Great White Sharks ate a dead whale.

The Great White was seen feeding on a dead Bryde's Whale on September 11, 2010 in Seal Island, Cape, South Africa.

Almost 30 sharks took the opportunity to have lunch when they spotted the whale, giving animal lovers and wildlife experts an extraordinary insight into their feeding behaviours.

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RIM Readies Its Answer To iPad

From The Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. could unveil its new tablet computer—as well as the operating system that will power it—as early as next week at a developers' conference in San Francisco, said people familiar with RIM's plans.

The tablet, which some inside RIM are calling the BlackPad, is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year, these people said. It will feature a seven-inch touch screen and one or two built-in cameras, they said.

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Secrets Of Apple's Customer Success

Photo: The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is one of the company's flagship stores in terms of both customer traffic and architecture and design. (Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

From CNET:

Hardware manufacturers liberally take cues from Apple products, so why not its approach to customers?

For the seventh straight year, Apple has topped its competitors in the PC industry in the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), achieving a score of 86 out of 100. Its Apple's highest ranking since the annual survey began in 1995.

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Feds’ Requests For Google Data Rise 20 Percent

From Threat Level:

The number of U.S. government requests for Google data rose 20 percent in the last six months, according to data released by the search giant Monday.

U.S. government agencies sent Google 4,287 requests for data on Google users and services from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2010, an average of 23.5 a day. That’s compared to 3,287 for July 1 to Dec. 31, 2009, the company reported Tuesday in an update to its unique transparency tool.

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Twitter Users Including Sarah Brown Hit By Malicious Hacker Attack

An example of the "mouseover" code exploit being used on Twitter: this example is harmless but many others are not. Source: Sophos.com

From The Guardian:

Bug in new-look site exploited to redirect viewers on Twitter.com if they just hover over a link - but users of third-party software are safe (updated)

Update: the flaw has been fixed, and Twitter now says it is safe to use twitter.com again.

Sarah Brown is among thousands of Twitter users who have been hit by malicious use of a security flaw in the redesigned Twitter site.

The wife of the former prime minister Gordon Brown, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, unknowingly sent a link which contained malicious code that would redirect anyone who moved their mouse over it - but didn't click it - to a Japanese hard-core pornography site.

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Britain Vulnerable To Space Nuclear Attack Or 'Solar Flare' Storm, Conference Told

Dr Fox highlighted warnings from scientists that essential infrastructure such as satellites, could be paralysed by a once-in-a-century solar flare. Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

Rogue states such as North Korea and Iran could use nuclear weapons to attack Britain’s vital communications and electricity networks from space, a security conference heard.

In a stark warning, Dr Liam Fox warned countries that sought nuclear capabilities could attack Britain from the upper atmosphere instead of through more traditional “nuclear strikes”.

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Video: Spanish Designer Demonstrates Spray-On Clothing

From Popular Science:

High fashion meets high tech with this new spray-on clothing designed by a Spanish fashionisto. The design team also hopes to use the technology for spray-on bandages and hygienic upholstery.

Manel Torres worked with scientists at Imperial College London to invent the silly-string-like spray, announced just in time for Fashion Week.

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Six Ways That Artists Hack Your Brain

From New Scientist:

Since humankind first put brush to canvas, artists have played with the mind and the senses to create sublime atmospheres and odd impressions. It is only recently, with a blossoming understanding of the way the brain deconstructs images, that neuroscientists and psychologists have finally begun to understand how these tricks work.

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Hot Atmosphere Of Venus Might Cool Interior Of Earth’s Sister Planet

Temperature distribution within Venus and local mobilization at the surface. (Credit: DLR)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2010) — The heat in the atmosphere of Venus, induced from a strong greenhouse warming, might actually have a cooling effect on the planet's interior. This counter-intuitive theory is based on calculations from a new model presented at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Rome.

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Kids Who Own Dogs Are More Active

From Live Science:

When little Johnny or Molly asks for a puppy for their birthday, parents may want to give in. New research in England suggests children whose families own dogs are more active than those without a furry friend running around.

The research could have implications for childhood obesity in the United States, where 17 percent of 2- to 19-year-olds are obese, according to a 2007-2008 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among 6- to 19-year-olds, obesity has tripled over the past two decades, according to the CDC.

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10 Bizarre Locations & Unsolved Mysteries

From The List Blog:

Many strange and unexplained events have occurred in modern history.
These events are often based around an unsolved murder, bizarre
landmark, unexplained attack, or archeological discovery. This list will be
examining some bizarre locations and unsolved mysteries.

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Twitter: The New Stage For Hacker Hijinks

Among the many Twitter pages found to be spreading a worm this morning was the Whitehouse. (Credit: Websense Labs)

From CNET:

Generating a news frenzy usually reserved for Apple product launches, pranksters turned Twitter into wormville this morning. The fast-spreading exploits proved two things: Twitter is undoubtedly now a mainstream service, and it's joined the ranks of big-time tech companies as a target for hackers.

Security experts interviewed by CNET say the messaging service has done a fair job of protecting itself so far, but will have to be more careful with its coding if it wants to be trusted for news aggregation, integration on corporate sites, and as a useful international communication tool.

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Life On Earth May Have Had An Icy Start

From The Danger Room:

Tracks in ice could have served as a safe environment — much like a cell — for the first life on Earth to replicate and evolve.

A new study adds plausibility to the ‘RNA World’ hypothesis that argues life began with a single stranded molecule capable of self-replication.

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